Welcome to Russian History Re-Tool Episode 270, The Moscow Trials.

Last time we finished the monumental series on one of Russia's greatest heroes, Mikhail

Katuzov. Today we will tell the story of the infamous Moscow Trials, also known as

the Show Trials, which were held between 1936 and 1938. I will be relying on four books

to tell the story of this horrific period of time in the Soviet Union. First, Russia,

a thousand-year Chronicle of the Wild East by Martin VI. Stalin, the Court of the Red

Tsar, by Simon C. Bergmanofior, former people, the final days of the Russian ever stock

receipt by Douglas Smith, and on Stalin's team, the years of living dangerously in Soviet

politics by Sheila Fitzpatrick. The Moscow Show Trials were part of the more extensive

operation known as the Great Purge, a topic I will cover later this year in a multi-part

series. The focus of the Moscow Trials was the destruction of the old Bolsheviks, those

men and women who Stalin viewed as a threat to his control of the Soviet Union. There would

be three main trials in total. The first would be called the case of the Trotskyite-Zenovyite

Terrorist Center, also known as the Zenovy of Kamenyev Trial, and also known as the Trial

of the Sixteen, which we'd be held in August 1936. The second held in January 1937 was named

the case of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center, also known as the Piatakov-Rodik Trial or

the Trial of the Seventeen. The third and final trial was known as the case of the anti-Soviet

block of rights and Trotskyis, or the Bukharin-Rikov-Trial, also known as the Trial of the 21 held

in March 1938. The defendants were predominantly old Bolshevik party leaders and top officials

of the Soviet-Secret Police. Most were charged under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code with

conspiring with imperialist powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet

Union and restore capitalism. As Stalin put it, quote, we will destroy every enemy, even if he

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